The End of Innocence
by Sassy Lil Scorpio
Summary: Who was Shane Walsh? What had happened to him? More importantly, what would happen to Rick Grimes, now that he had killed his best friend? Shane had lost himself. Did Rick lose himself, too? Rick knows the answer, although it's difficult for him to accept the truth. Sometimes an ending is a beginning. {Inspired by Rick's and Shane's final scene during "Better Angels"}
**The End of Innocence**

 **A Walking Dead Fanfiction by Sassy Lil Scorpio**

 **Disclaimer: ** Shane Walsh, Rick Grimes, and all other characters from _The Walking Dead_ are from the creative imagination of Robert Kirkman. This author makes no claim of ownership. No monetary gain is being made from this work.

 **Author's Notes:** The title for this fanfiction is taken from The Walking Dead OST from Season 2, Episode 12 "Better Angels" composed by Bear McCreary. It's the musical score after Carl Grimes shoots Walker-Shane Walsh and Rick Grimes stands over his body.

 **Rating:** T

 **Summary:** Who was Shane Walsh? What had happened to him? More importantly, what would happen to Rick Grimes, now that he had killed his best friend? Shane had lost himself. Did Rick lose himself, too? Rick knows the answer, although it's difficult for him to accept the truth.

 **Dedication:** This story is for Tanisha and Liz, who got me into _The Walking Dead._ Thank you so much for getting me hooked on this _**amazing**_ show/comic series. Tanisha, we've known each other since 3rd grade. You're the Shane to my Rick. It took me a longer time to get to where you are, but like Rick, I got there. Thank you for being my best friend and sister through everything. Liz, thank you for being a really great friend and for your love! For The Venom Symbiote, thank you for all the awesome conversations about Shane Walsh. Thank you for the quote you left in your review! It's perfectly fitting for the final scene between Rick Grimes and Shane Walsh. From one Shane fan to another, who truly understands and appreciates the complexity of Shane Walsh as portrayed by Jon Bernthal. This story is for you.

oOo

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 _"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him.  
_ _I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.  
And then, in that very moment when I love them... I destroy them."_

 _― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game_

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oOo

Rick Grimes kneeled over the man he had been proud to call his partner, best friend, and brother.

Their positions had been reversed only a month ago. He had lain in the grass after being shot by the escaped convict. Blood spread across his police uniform, every breath he took burned his lungs, and unconsciousness had swept over him as searing pain raked across his chest where he had been shot. He remembered that time. It seemed like eons ago when he heard Shane Walsh demanding for an ambulance to be called. The desperation and terror in his friend's voice was real. Rick knew Shane was afraid of him dying that day.

Back then, Shane had pled with him to stay alive. He found out later that Shane had tried to get him out of the hospital and after thinking he was dead, his friend had pushed a hospital bed to block the door so that walkers couldn't get inside to devour him. Maybe Shane had a shred of hope that he was still alive, and that if he was, at least putting the bed as a barricade would ensure Rick survived.

Now Shane wanted to kill him. Who was Shane? Who had he become? Rick barely recognized the man he had once called "brother." By the end of the night, Rick realized the more important question was: what had happened to Shane? And more so, what would happen to him, now that he had killed his best friend? Shane Walsh had lost himself. Had Rick Grimes lost himself, too?

Rick's breath came out in sharp gasps. Shane's head turned to the side slowly at the same moment that his bloody hand reached out to touch Rick. Rick felt the slight brushing of Shane's hand on his neck. Rick didn't know what that last gesture meant. Was Shane trying to apologize to Rick for what happened between them? For the way their friendship had been destroyed? For sleeping with Lori? Then Shane became still as death blanketed him. Rick looked down at Shane's body, fighting against the mounting horror and tears that threatened to overwhelm him.

The world had gone to hell and he had killed his best friend.

For some reason, Rick thought back to that day when he and Shane drove eighteen miles out to get rid of Randall and have "the talk" about their situation with Lori. Rick had been indecisive and Shane knew exactly what he wanted to do. Rick hadn't been ready to execute Randall; he knew he was stalling, and Shane kept snapping at him, pushing him, forcing him to do something. They went to the abandoned public works station and put down two walker police officers.

Rick had stared at the two dead police officers laying on the ground, uneasy and saddened. Was this a hint of things to come for him and Shane? Would they both be dead before the apocalypse was over? Upon seeing the corpses of the two young police officers, Rick thought it was a reflection of what once was and what lay ahead in the near future for him and Shane. Their friendship. Dead. Deteriorated.

At the time when he was there with Shane, Rick had imagined the lives of the two officers. He didn't know their names, so he had made them up. Their names were Kevin Williams and Anthony Davis. They were best friends since middle school, after Kevin's family moved next door to Anthony's. They played one-on-one at the basketball court in the park and chased girls together. Anthony was the best man in Kevin's wedding. They joined the police force together. Like Rick, Kevin wanted to make a difference in the world. Similar to Shane, Anthony enjoyed the adrenaline rush of the job. Fate continued to bless them and they became police partners.

Questions took over Rick's mind. Questions he would never have answers for. Did the two officers go down in the line of fire? Did they die protecting each other? Did they make a suicide pact and opt out at the same time? Was it a murder-suicide, where one officer killed the other and then himself?

Or did Anthony turn against Kevin the same way Shane had turned against him?

Most importantly, why couldn't he and Shane be partners like they used to be? Why couldn't they die the way they had lived? As friends, on the same side, backing each other up as police partners did. Rick didn't want to die, he would do anything to survive—contrary to what Shane thought—he would kill to protect Lori and Carl. And yet…he hadn't been able to stop the awful feeling of numbness from taking over when he had looked at the two dead police officers and wondered how they had met their ends.

This wasn't going to be him and Shane. They were no longer friends. After Shane threw the wrench at the window above Rick, Rick forced himself to face the horrible truth: Shane intended to kill him. He had meant for that wrench to break every bone in Rick's face. Rick didn't know when it would happen again, but his intentions were clear. Shane would try to kill him again. And when that day came, Rick would be ready.

Now that day, or rather, that night had finally came. And Rick _wasn't_ ready.

He wasn't ready for the guilt mixed with sorrow gnawing at his heart. He wasn't ready for the toxic blending of confusion and anger that twisted his insides. He wasn't ready for how his mind would replay his last conversation with Shane over and over until both their words melted together. He wasn't ready to keep rehashing that final confrontation with Shane, all the animosity and tension leading up to it, how he had tucked a knife away from Shane's view.

He wasn't ready for the changes that were already taking over his psyche. Changes that meant he wouldn't trust anyone the way he used to. That meant he couldn't and wouldn't hesitate to kill another human being if his life was threatened. Even if that meant killing his best friend.

He had to kill Shane. He tried to throw out that horrible thought, but it boomeranged right back in his mind. He struggled to bury it under good memories of him and Shane together, such as the time Shane came over the house to repair the washing machine that Rick had accidentally broken. But it kept returning to the forefront of his mind: _I had to kill him…I wanted to kill him…_ In killing Shane, Rick found now that he finally understood him.

For the first time, Rick understood why Shane had shot Otis and how it had affected him. Shane had killed for the right reasons, but it also meant killing any sense of compassion for another human being. It tore Shane's mind apart that he had ended another person's life so that another could live. The sharp contrast in morals turned upside-down, the utter blackness and whiteness and contradictory shades of gray were so painful for Shane to reconcile. Although Shane had learned to accept the new reality of this crazy world, it meant destroying whom he once was. He was forced to do things that he wouldn't have done if things were "normal" again. (For Rick, "normal" meaning no walking corpses, living a stable and safe life, go through everyday the same as before, work, sleep, eat, work on his marriage, raise his son to be a man. Rinse and repeat.) Shane had been forced to make decisions about life and death that tormented him. Rick knew now that Shane had been traumatized from what he had done to Otis, although he had did it so that Carl would live. So that Rick and Lori would still have their son. Shane sacrificed his sanity so that the Grimes' family could stay intact. Rick was beginning to fully understand what Shane had meant when he told him: _"you can't just be the good guy and expect to live. Not anymore."_

Standing over Shane's body, Rick didn't wipe the tears that slid down his face. He had never thanked Shane for trying to get him out of the hospital. He had never expressed gratitude to Shane for protecting him in the best way he knew how by using a hospital bed to block him inside his room. It was because of Shane that he was still here, alive, breathing, and living in this insane new world. _No, not living,_ Rick thought. _Survive. I'm surviving, but I'm not living._

And it was Shane who had forced Rick to kill him. Deep down inside, Rick came to the realization that Shane _wanted_ Rick to kill him. Shane had talked a lot of trash with _"you got a broken woman, you got a weak boy, you ain't got the first clue on how to fix it"_ …but he didn't pull the trigger. All his talk about being a better father for Carl and a better man for Lori was to antagonize Rick, work him up to a furious frenzy. Rick knew if Shane really wanted to kill him, Shane would've done so immediately—just as when he attempted to shoot Randall the first time and Rick stopped him. Shane couldn't talk sense into Rick, so he forced Rick into a situation where he would have to act fast—where he had no choice except to protect himself and those he loved.

Because the truth was Rick could kill dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of walkers. None of that would have the impact on Rick as killing his best friend would. Rick could get better at killing walkers and devise new ways to save bullets. But he would never get better at killing those he loved. Killing Shane would leave a permanent mark on Rick's soul. And Shane knew it.

Rick wasn't sure whether to thank Shane or mourn for him. He knew one thing was for certain: he would always remember Shane. There would never be a day when he didn't think of Shane, and what they once had: a friendship between two men, a brotherhood that had been broken because Shane had lost himself. In losing himself, he had forced Rick to find his inner strength, to harden into the new man who would need to fight—and kill, if necessary—to survive in this insane world.

Most of all, Shane Walsh had stolen the innocence that Rick Grimes had desperately tried to hold onto. Through his actions, Shane had snatched away the ideals that Rick clung to: the hope that he could still be the same man he was before, that he could still use the same approach to life that had worked in the old world they had lived in. It was a new world now, and Rick couldn't simply live in it the way he had lived before. Shane knew this all too well. New circumstances called for a new way of approaching life. You couldn't just live in this walker-infested world where the living were far more lethal than the dead. You had to fight to survive as Shane had repeatedly shouted the day he opened the barn.

Rick had fought the urge to kill Shane and he had finally gave in. He had wrestled with his conscience and he could never undo what he did to Shane, just as he would never return to being who he once was after this night was over. He had started his journey and reached his destination at the same time: he was at the beginning of who he needed to be from now on…and he was facing the end of his innocence...

 **-The End (Is The Beginning)-**


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